Far beneath the black canopy of trees, Taru twisted herself in a knot itching at her shoulder blade. With each scratch she pulled away nails full of dry skin. 

The scratching, scurrying sound had returned and it was growing louder. Though loud wasn’t really the right word. It was as if she could feel it scuttling around inside her ears, digging in.

She watched the shadows move between trees in their halting, stilted way. None came any closer, but none moved away. One stood just outside the ring of lantern light, staring past the fire to where Bhaltair lay. Taru recognised its unfathomable blackness; the intent of its attention and the way it fixed it on Bhaltair.

She shuffled closer to the fire and looked up at where Ruskin had magicked her lantern to hang high above the camp, turning slowly so that the latch cast its curling shadow over her every ten minutes, or so he reckoned. 

Now, Ruskin prodded at the fire with a stick, turning over some of the fuel. After a few moments of crackling, he asked, “What’s that?”

“Shadows,” she muttered.

Ruskin tutted. “Not that,” he said, then stood and looked at where her fingers flicked flakes of skin into the grass. “That.”

Embarrassed at being caught, Taru hastily scrubbed her nails on her crusty riding trousers. They came back dirtier. “Just dry skin,” she announced with a sniff. 

“Do you need something for it? I have a particularly effective nut butter that can—”

“It’s fine,” Taru insisted. “‘Sides, it gets worse if I put stuff on it.”

Ruskin took a step around her, his eyes trained on her shoulder. 

Taru stepped with him, lifting her hands to stop him. “‘Ere, I said it’s fine.”

Ruskin glanced between her shoulder and her eyes. “Is it a frequent occurrence?”

“Yep. Had it as long as I can remember. Usually gets worse when I’m stressed.” She stared pointedly at him, hoping he’d get it.

“You have healers in Shude, don’t you?” Fixated with whatever was going on on Taru’s back, the message flew right over Ruskin’s head.

Taru sighed. “That we do, aye, and I’ve seen‘m. That’s how I know it’s owt and nowt. Now leave it, yeah?”

Ruskin lifted his chin and shrugged. “Can’t help what won’t be helped.”

“That’s right.” Taru played with some of the wetter sticks that Ruskin had kept out of the fire, shifting them around with her feet until they made shapes. A hare. A wolf.

Her attention drifted irresistibly back to the Bhaltair-obsessed shadow.

“We’re gonna have to get moving soon,” she muttered.

Ruskin nodded.

“If they’re not up within six turns of the lantern, I’ll carry Bhaltair and you can carry the bags, yeah?”

Ruskin’s face screwed up. “I’ve told you, I could use the weave to—” 

“And I’ve told you, magic attracts them.”

“I don’t think it’s the magic that’s attracting them,” Ruskin murmured.

After a moment, and even though she’d heard him, Taru asked, “What d’you say?”

Just then, Bhaltair stirred, and Taru caught Ruskin’s eyes darting across to watch the alfar’s slow crawl into the world of the living. She went to the tent and, as she got there, Bhaltair pulled a deep, raspy breath. On the exhale, they croaked, “Leave.”

Ice dribbled down Taru’s spine. “Leave?” she repeated quietly.

“To the weave.”

Taru frowned.

“What is woven.”

Her confusion was broken by a flood of relief which washed away her cold, clammy fear. The rush was so strong, in fact, that she felt it stir something in her chest. She let it out on a breath of laughter. “Leave to the weave what is woven,” she repeated and, for good measure, added, “right.”

“I… need… water.”

Ruskin handed Taru Bhaltair’s waterskin from behind the tent. She unstoppered it and squeezed it gently so that a drop dripped from its lip onto the seam of Bhaltair’s. It spread out until they opened, then disappeared between the mauve and into the darkness beyond. She poured until Bhaltair grunted. 

As they opened their eyes, she asked, “You feeling all right, mate?”

“A wee bit groggy,” they slurred, rubbing their lips together. “Dying of thirst, though.”

“You want more?”

“Naw, gimme a minute, will you? I’ll get to it myself once I’m right.”

Taru sat back on her heels. Bhaltair struggled themself up until they were hunched over their crossed legs and staring down at the scarred backs of their hands. 

“What happened?” they asked.

“You passed out in the middle of the song,” Taru explained, “so I carried on for you. Then Ruskin appeared and gave the kludde some medicine. Then the kludde woke up, spooked, and ran away, so she’s healthy enough to run.” 

Taru found herself thinking of the skvader she’d seen when she first entered the deep forest. Was it infected, too? While not the first time the thought had come to her since seeing the kludde, it was the first time she’d really thought about it.

“Who’s Ruskin?” Bhaltair looked past Taru to the fire.

“Good afternoon,” Ruskin said, stepping out from behind the tent flap.

“Evening,” Taru corrected him.

“Hel-lo~” Bhaltair’s eyes widened as they dropped down and then climbed back up Ruskin’s frame. Suddenly frowning at Taru, they rolled onto their knees. “Has it really been that long?”

“I’ve slept twice since you dropped off,” she said, frowning at him.

“I must’ve really needed it,” Bhaltair chuckled, a thin line of doubt splitting their eyebrows. They glanced around the camp. “Where are we?” they asked as they climbed to their feet and stretched. For a moment they swayed then staggered back, eyes wide and unseeing. As their eyes rolled closed, their knees shook. Taru leapt up to steady them and, to her surprise, so did Ruskin. Together, they carefully lowered Bhaltair to sit on the ground between them.

“Take your time,” Ruskin said in an imperious tone. “We’ve got everything under control. We were just discussing when would be best to move on as the shadows are drawing in. I’m Ruskin Fairweather, an apothecary. I go by he.”

Bhaltair blinked down at the offered hand and slowly slid their own against it, tucking the thumbs neatly.

Taru sat back, glancing between the two as Bhaltair said,

“I am Bhaltair, a sithseiðr… or a bard, if you prefer.” They lay their hand on Ruskin’s wrist. “As for my pronouns, well. You can call me whichever ones you like best,” they purred.

Taru’s brow shot up at the audacity.

“Oh, I don’t have any particular preference,” Ruskin said with a confused smile.

Bhaltair paused a moment, then forged on, “Well, how do you see me?”

At first, it was just a prickling sensation radiating out from her shoulders. Then, the scratching and the hissing and the clicking drowned out all other sound. After that, Taru felt dread unlike any she had known before: thick and sticky as it moved through her, pushing into corners she didn’t know she had, swallowing all the joy and colour that hid there.

She overcame it just long enough to turn her head. Standing beneath her lantern yet somehow unlit, was the tall Bhaltair-shaped shadow, its attention fixed on Bhaltair’s feet. It did not blister or burn. It did not recoil in shock or pain. It simply stood, watching.

Unable to form words, but certain she needed to do something, Taru felt a knot of dread tangle in her chest before, with a single powerful burst of breath, she loosed an inhuman shriek. The shadow creature was unmoved and undistracted, but Bhaltair and Ruskin were on their feet in moments, their attention fixed first on Taru, and then on it.

Bhaltair was the first to react, yelling a curse and bolting for the trees.

As more shadows gathered around the first, Ruskin hopped back and forth, seeming uncertain what to do.

Taru, however, was not. She launched herself after Bhaltair as fast as she could, crying out to Ruskin to, “Run!”

Thank the gods he listened: Taru heard him curse quietly behind her as they sprinted after Bhaltair’s disappearing heels. They were only three steps towards the trees, however, when she heard him curse again, this time followed by, 

“My kit!” 

“Leave it,” she yelled back, and turned to look.

He was not leaving it.

She slowed down and cried, “Ruskin, come on!”

“I have to get my kit,” he called back. “Just go on, I’ll catch up.”

Ruskin pressed on towards the tents as the shadows pressed on towards him, alarmingly fast for how little they moved. Taru realised then that he didn’t know they were coming for him. The tallest tent was between him and them and his attention had been scouring the ground since she turned around.

It was Taru’s turn to hop back and forth in indecision before—with a muttered, “Apscondo save me—” she bolted after him.

She was within touching distance of the tent when Ruskin lunged out of view behind it. Sprinting past it, she found him with his fingers straining an inch from the strap of his kit. A step beyond it loomed the largest of the shadows, a strange curl of the lips almost visible within the darkness. 

The scratching and scurrying morphed, sounding more like things: voices sometimes, music others. Taru didn’t listen. Instead, she leapt for Ruskin, grabbing him around the middle and dragging him back just as the shadow aimed a swipe at where he had been, gouging up earth in its otherwise empty fingers. As the shadow creature aimed another swipe at Ruskin, the reality of his situation seemed to dawn on him and he scrambled out of Taru’s arms, only stopping to grab her hand and pull.

“Come on!” he cried. 

Unlike him, she didn’t need any more incentive.

Blistering pain pierced her ankle. 

In that moment, Taru felt the crushing weight of all the guilt, jealousy, anger, and sadness she had never let herself feel. 

Then, Ruskin gasped a word that made her head feel light and her body feel nothing, and the pair of them sprinted for the trees.

-~*~-

Just an hour ago, the sight of Bhaltair awake—never mind smiling at her in relief—would have been a blessing. Now, on the other hand…

Taru stormed across the clearing and shoved them so hard they lost balance.

“You left us!” she screamed an inch from them, and they flinched away, their grin turning grim.

“I thought you were behind me,” they tried as Ruskin hissed,

“Keep your voice down,” but Taru was shoving at Bhaltair’s chest and they flailed about trying to grab her hands.

“You din’t check though, did you? You just kept running. We could’ve died back there!”

“I’m not the one who went back into the shadows’ den, am I?”

But Taru wasn’t listening. “You din’t even look! Not once!”

“I did look once. That’s why I stopped.”

“All this way,” she gasped, nose stinging and hot tears rising in her vision, “didn’t look back.” She caught her breath then pulled a deep one in through her nose, letting it out slowly between pursed lips. “Selfish sod,” she growled and turned away from the pair of them.

Silence fell. 

In it, Taru tried to listen for clues over the sound of her own breathing. There was no scratching. No scurrying. No birds. No critters. No wind. There was so much nothing that it was palpable: a real, solid thing that existed in the absence of anything.

“I think the river’s this way,” Bhaltair pointed towards the trees. “But the sound could be bouncing off the trees. We need to find a path, ideally.”

Taru shook her head and turned back to them, glum. “All our stuff… our bags… my lantern… your instrument box… your apothecary kit… it’s all back there.”

“We’ll get it back,” Ruskin insisted. “We should wait a little while for them to clear out, first, but—”

“I’m sorry, Rusk,” Bhaltair said, shaking their head, “but there’s no getting that stuff back now. It’s theirs. It’s gone.”

Ruskin stared at Bhaltair, evidently not understanding.

“Bhaltair’s pipes were taken by the shadows over a fortnight ago,” Taru explained quietly, toeing at a tuft of moss.

“What’s gone is gone,” Bhaltair said solemnly. “Trust me, I’ve tried. I know now the only way to get them back is to set this place right. So we gotta keep going. We can’t go back, now.”